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Sunday, 25 March 2018

Idea for a Low Life Adventure: Explorers from Another Time!

This is an idea I've had for a while, but first of all I'd like to specify it requires players with a good sense of humor and able to roll with the unexpected.

So you grab your Savage Worlds book as well as the Science Fiction Companion and tell your players you're gonna run them an old-school sci-fi game of Flash Gordonesque aesthetics. You tell the PCs they can play robots and even friendly aliens as per the books, but at least one Human would be a good idea. Heck, maybe you even run them a story or two of classic sci-fi adventures to set them at ease.

The idea of having the sci-fi specifically be a cheesy old-school one is so the players will retain a certain sense of humor about the whole thing and not feel too betrayed when the twist happens; They come across a black hole, are dragged into it and find themselves in... THE WORLD OF LOW LIFE, set in their own distant future! (With their ship too damaged to fly again at that point of course.)

Truth be told as hilarious as this idea is to me, it does have a bit of a railroady aspect to it in the sense that it assumes the players cannot avoid the Black Hole for this twist to happen. There's a few ways to deal with that.

- You don't run games previous to this event, the game starts after their characters have already been through the black hole as background. It is recommended you initially drop them in a spot without intelligent beings in their immediate presence and with monsters that won't betray the comedic tone of the setting right away. As they move closer to civilization, they start to understand this isn't the game they thought it would be...

- You can also openly let your players know from the start that some of your ideas might include an event or two they won't be able to avoid and promise them bonus Bennies for their temporary loss of player agency when the time comes, as well as the promise that it won't be a recurring thing.

- You could use Low Life's Oith as a Ravenloft-like place they visit temporarily before finding a way to escape from it, the 'Weekend in Hell' type of adventure. (Weekend in Heck?)

For those familiar with the Low Life setting, you might now see why I mentioned at first at least one Human would be recommended for the adventure. How would the visit of such a being affect Oith's civilization? Maybe it doesn't at all, maybe everyone thinks the Human is the weirdest Bodul they've ever seen. Maybe the mere presence of a Human or two starts a local religious war (and if it does it should really be based on ridiculous notions regarding the PCs and their looks and habits).

This idea doesn't have to be for sci-fi only, I hear magic portals are a thing in Fantasy... Again, just make sure there's at least one Human in the group. For giggles.